Chemical abundances and gas content in disk galaxies: correlations with the λ spin parameter

Abstract

By using a very simple and general model to describe the dynamics of disk galaxies, we estimate the  λ spin parameter for a sample of observed galaxies and present a study in which we show that several important physical properties are intrinsically related to the dynamics of the systems. Although correlations between average metallicity with magnitude or Hubble type are evident, we obtain equally strong correlations with the spin parameter, where galaxies with low λ values present higher abundances and galaxies with high  λ values are poor in metals. Also, the gas content of the galaxies correlates with  λ, with high  λ systems showing higher gas mass fractions than low  λ galaxies, highlighting the important role this parameter plays in the structure of disk galaxies and the proposal of  λ as a robust and objective physical measure of galactic morphology.